The article doesn't provide enough specifics on staffing for the ladder truck vs. the LRV but if there are at least three, the ladder driver could bring the truck to the incident and the LRV could meet at the scene if necessary.

It REALLY doesn't make alot of sense to be running million dollar 100 foot aerial trucks and 2500 gallon pumper tankers (or even 500 gallon fire engines) up and down the road for basic medical calls.

On paper, an LRV can be very effective at saving money and it is a fact that most calls ran any fire department are medicals. I believe I read somewhere that Boulder doesn't staff their ladder truck for general rescue capabilities (MVAs, etc), so it would make a bit of sense that they are doing this study with the ladder crew. However, 2516 is a very busy company and spends a lot of time out of station driving to and back from scenes. They can often be toned out to calls while out of station, and it would definitely take time to park the LRV and pick up the ladder truck if that were the case. Perhaps they should add some rescue capabilities on the ladder truck so they can take the engine out of service instead and keep the ladder truck in service 24/7.

I briefly remember an article somewhere of something similar to an LRV (probably a minipumper) being first due on scene to a structure fire with people trapped. The facts of that other case is that the minipumper did not have the equipment necessary to effect a rescue, that fire resulted in loss of life.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next two years.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens, and if it works. I was surprised how many people (I am assuming citizens) were complaining about the fire department wasting money by sending the large vehicles to medical calls or the grocery store, without really understanding why.

I wonder if people ever think about how many times firefighters end up riding to the hospital on an ambulance to help with the patient? Then the fire engine/truck is out of service and going to the hospital to pick up their personnel. Funny how nobody who commented on that article brought that up. I don't see anything wrong with that. It may seem like a waste of money to some people, but I would rather have more hands working to keep someone alive on the way to the hospital, and keeping the crews geographically closer so they can go back into service again after the call or transport. Not only that, but I think its helpful to have to fire department on medical calls in many cases, not only for response times but for the extra hands and the physical strength they can provide. I wish people would just realize that the life saving services that are provided to the community are expensive and thats just the cost of doing business. I used to think it was silly for an engine or truck to go to the hospital to pick up its personnel, but then they wouldn't have enough people on board to be in service anyway if they sent a smaller vehicle to go pick them up. I think the public needs to just trust the people they are counting on to be there when they call for help.